


Her Heart I Bathed in Poison

by localgoth



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Cunnilingus, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Face-Sitting, Found Family, Jealousy, Manipulation, Power Play, Sexual Frustration, The Knife of Dunwall, Vaginal Fingering, masturbation (implied)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:47:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22286623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/localgoth/pseuds/localgoth
Summary: Everything changed after the assassination of the Empress, particularly Daud. Now her mentor is fixated on the name "Delilah," Unsure if she will be his saving grace or a powerful enemy. Billie Lurk, his second in command, is tasked to discover who Delilah might be. The wonderful sleuth she is, Billie not only finds her, but gets to know her far more better than Daud intended her to.--This is essentially the Knife of Dunwall told from Billie's perspective, minus any redundant scenes. I just feel like there's a lot of story going on in the background that we never saw because the story followed Daud - particularly between Billie and Delilah
Relationships: Billie Lurk & Daud, Billie Lurk/Deirdre (past), Billie Lurk/Delilah Copperspoon, Billie Lurk/Delilah Kaldwin, Delilah Copperspoon/Breanna Ashworth (implied)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> rating is rather mild because it will probably be mostly like, implied violence and maybe some language. I haven't decided if there will be a sex scene, it's kind of something I'm just making up on the fly, so rating could change. 
> 
> This is mostly just a Billie and Daud chapter bc you know I am a slut for that found family trope just fmu

_ Delilah. _ The only thing Daud said after waking from an extended period of silence.

\----

Billie rests the glass next to Daud, caramel liquid sloshing around inside. Daud doesn’t make a habit of drinking, but for Orbon Rum - a brew from his native Serkonos - he would make the exception. “We should be celebrating.” Billie reminds Daud, when the brew remains untouched. An Empress, the richest blood any of the Whalers had spilled - and there had been plenty. Already, voices from the floors above of those sharing a celebratory drink for the Whalers victorious contract. Yet Daud, the one who had delivered the fatal blow, was silent, excluding himself as he hide within his chamber. 

From the moment the hilt of his blade touched the Empress’ flesh, he was acting different. And she did mean the precise moment, almost as if time had stopped for him, he slipped away from their world for a moment. Billie had enough experience with black magic to know it wasn’t entirely impossible. Had the void opened up and swallowed Daud within the moment his blade breached royal skin, cutting a rift into history? The Outsider did not talk to just anyone, and he certainly didn’t bring them into the void for no reason either. “What is it?” She lingers close in her concern, but hesitates before she is able to place a comforting hand on his arm. What did He say to him, she wondered. It must have been important for Daud to be acting this way.

“That damn Bodyguard,” Daud grumbles, shakes his head. “He wasn’t supposed to be there! That wasn’t part of the contract.” He sucks at his cigar, but Billie notices the way his hand quivers as he holds it. 

There was a truth; they had been instructed to strike on this day because the Royal Protector was to be away on a mission given by the Empress, herself. The other guards, paid to turn a blind eye; Empress Jessamine would be vulnerable. But as the elite group of assassins had neared the gazebo, three figures had stood there. One, their target, the Empress herself. Two, the small unassuming form of her young daughter. And Corvo Attano, the last of which had been the worst of surprises. “No,” She decidedly speaks, after a prolonged silence. Their initial plan had depended upon the Royal Protector’s absence, but there was a reason the Whalers were the best when it came to assassins in Dunwall. One overpaid bodyguard was no match for Daud and a handful of his best assassins - and the supernatural edge they possessed over him. They tethered him with their powers, stuck the Empress and kidnapped her daughter for good measure. The entire mission was a success despite the tiny setback they had gracefully maneuvered. Even better than that - an improvised decision - Corvo would take the fall for what happened. As far as any of the people of Dunwall knew, the Royal Protector went mad with power, killed his empress, and he would be executed for treason. Daud believed the ends justified the means. This wasn’t the sort of thing he allowed to eat at him. There was something else he wasn’t saying. “I don’t believe that.” She insists.

Daud meets her eyes, takes another long drag. There is something in his face, irritation at her, and Billie knows it’s because she read him well. “I don’t like loose ends, Lurk.” he relays. “Letting him live, it’s going to come back and bite us in the ass. We should have killed him then and there.”

Another evasion. Another bland insistent, but Billie had dealt with Daud for ten years. She knows sometimes with Daud it takes time. He would open up about it eventually. He always did, for Billie Lurk. 

But the months pass and still this overbearing silence. Other contracts come and end with coin collected. Daud even takes jobs himself, mechanically executing any that come his way. He spends more time in his chambers secluded from the others. He talks to her, but his words are short and distant, usually only to pass orders. She was the second in command and could pick up on his more trivial duties. Setting people up with contracts. Distributing supplies in a manner that was fair. Ensuring new recruits were paired with a veteran assassin to learn from. Daud didn’t teach new recruits, anymore. He had last made the exception for her - or had he forgotten. 

And finally, a word. A single name. Delilah. No surname to match. 

“Is that what he told you?” Billie asks, looking at the splinters of wood that made up a crude shrine, draped with a single purple cloth, and nestled on top; two twin runes, carved from whalebone, and if Billie listened hard enough, sometimes she thought she could hear the cries of the beast that had given them. Daud had been praying, as he occasionally did, to the eyes beyond the sky - the Outsider himself. 

Daud rises from where he knelt before the altar. “Yes,” The word hisses through his lips. He does not meet eyes with Billie. “A long time ago.” A hint of regret. He is thinking he should have acted sooner.

“Is she a target?” Billie asks. She watches as Daud fishes a cigar from his red leathers, holds it between his lips and strikes a fire to it. He sucks a long, thought filled breath from the cigar.

“That I have yet to learn,” He speaks, the words breathed out in a puff of smoke. He turns towards her. “Billie, I need your help.” The words make her heart twitch. Six months of near silence from Daud. She had been left wondering if she had expended her use towards him. She was not something he could use and then throw away. Those months brewed betrayal into contempt. She would sooner drive a blade through his chest than to let him treat her like just another street rat. Daud was supposed to be different. When everyone else treated her like the dirt beneath their sole, kicked her while she was down, Daud had offered her the leg up in the world she had needed. She would never forget what he had done for her, but it only further soured her feelings when Daud had put a metaphorical wall between them. 

But now, a breakthrough. He needed her like he needed no others of the Whalers because she was different. She was the best of the lot. The right hand man - or woman - and she would naturally be his successor. Him asking her now was the stroke to her ego she had been pining after for the months in his absence.

“What is it, Old Man?” She betrays none of the emotions towards him, playing in her usual swagger. The confident protege of the master. 

“Delilah,” He repeats, takes another long drag. “Find out who she is.” His eyes seek where her’s would be, concealed beneath the glass circles of her mask. They betray him. He knows how absurd the task sounds, but it is a desperate task asked by a desperate man. She does not fully understand the importance of Delilah to him. A target, she understands. That’s easy, straightforward. Eliminate the undesirable. Delicately, without harm, if the patron specifies they want them alive. That is simple. Finding a woman, based off of a single half of a whole name, was another story. And what were they to do with her when she is found? Billie keeps any doubt to herself. It means something to Daud, so it means something to her, and if there was anyone in the Whalers who could uncover a deeply hidden secret - it was Billie. 

She nods, accepting her task. Then let’s herself slip back into a space that wasn’t quite Dunwall, and wasn’t quite the void, dissolved into black shreds before Daud’s eyes. The inbetween only lasts a second, the duration it takes to blink one’s eye, and she is back in Dunwall, shifted to a higher floor. She blinks again, putting further distance between her and her tutor and letting the action consume her thoughts so she won’t worry about how she is to complete this near impossible task.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billie finds Delilah...or Delilah finds Billie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sorta guessed at what Delilah's powers might be from what we've seen. She probably can control plants, right?

When she sleeps, she dreams of tumultuous waters. For the first few moments, she believes she is in the void, thinking her long wait for the Outsider to speak to her is finally over. Daud had described the void to her once - color was muted there. There was no breeze, no discernible sun in the sky. Ground existed in rifts, hovering in a stasis. And there was an ocean beneath it all. Dark, stagnant waters extending onwards towards infinity, with no moon to pull the water into waves. And how did she know it was the moon that created waves? It took Billie a moment, a memory bubbling up towards the surface. She once wanted nothing else but to own a ship and sail the vast waters between the isles. That was before she had met Daud. It felt distant and strange remembering it now.

But here she was standing on the decks of a massive vessel as the ocean juggled it between it’s waves. A ship in the void did not seem right, nor did she feel the presence of the Outsider. She steadies herself against the mast, holds it like a dear friend. She is alone, she observes, no hint of a crew nor captain. There is something liberating about that knowledge, about knowing she had to take charge or else the ship would be claimed by the untameable sea. She spots the empty helm, turning on it’s axis at the mercy of the sea. Billie takes long strides, fighting uneven shifting ground, as she moves from the mast to reach the wheel. Steadying the ship is like wrangling a hound, but Billie persists until she calms the violent shifts of the waves. There’s a thrill in the fight, of salt water pouring over her until it becomes a second skin. Her triumph is radiant. The air feels endless and fresh - unlike the pollution of Dunwall. There’s freedom in looking out on the horizon, seeing nothing but blue continuing on as far as she could see. And the sun she feels on her skin - she had been hiding in red leather and a mask for so long - feels like the breath of a loved one, secrets whispered in private meant for her ears only. It’s better than the void, better than Dunwall, and it’s a disappointment when she wakes up.

  
  
  


She looks at the ocean now, hours after her dream had ended. The waters are lazy in the early morning darkness and cradle a single Whaling ship, which was the object of her interest. Now here at the docks, Billie speaks muffled curses into the filter of her mask.

For days she had scouted Dunwall, looking for any hint of the single name Billie had been given to work with. Questioning what sources she had, interrogating what sources she didn’t. Eavesdropping private conversations, thumbing through hidden papers - and yet, she uncovered nothing. Nothing besides a ship bearing the same name. Delilah, it had been dubbed by the captain. It was all she had to move forward with. Only now that she had come to investigate, she realized what hint of a trail she had run dry. This was nothing but a coincidence. It had to be. She was getting desperate to bring back anything to Daud at this point, to prove his silence had been wrong, and a single ship was not going to be enough. 

“Fancy yourself a sailor?” She heard someone speak behind her. The unexpected voice jolts Billie, almost mistepping and slipping from her perch on the roof. She was nearly three stories above the street below, perched on a roof like a vulture where she would not be seen, and yet she was not alone. 

There was a woman, ghostly pale, dark lids over charming blue eyes. Sharp cheekbones, and dark short hair pushed back. Her clothes are elegant, clean, and - most unusually - expensive. 

“How did you manage to get up here?” Billie finds herself asking. If she had been determined, she could have climbed up - that was how Billie used to do it in the old days, before Daud, before this miniscule tether she had to the void, which allowed her to mirror some of his own powers. A woman wearing pointed heels for shoes like her did not seem the type who thrilled in climbing rooftops, had nothing to gain from doing so.

“Same way as you,” She answers. Billie’s eyes drop to her hand, which the woman holds in an elegant claw in the air. She seeks a familiar design of black, an eye with claws reaching outwards - the Outsider’s Mark - but gloves conceal any hope Billie has of finding it. 

“Transversal?” She was not one of Daud’s, and though Billie was not so naive to believe there were none others like Daud in the world, she thought it only reasonable to think they were few and far inbetween. She did not think she would meet another in her lifetime, yet the Outsider’s web seemed to have a way of weaving everyone together. 

She nods stiffly, and then takes steps closer towards Billie. “Tell me, what interest do you have in my ship?” Her hands rest on either side of Billie’s shoulders. She is uncomfortable with the touch, uncomfortable with having her back to the strange woman, not sure if she can yet trust her not to push her from the roof if she does not like what she hears, and Billie fully gets the impression that she is exactly the type of woman to do so. 

She called the ship her’s, but Billie was doubtful that this woman worked in the whaling industry. Yet the confidence she spoke with, it was admirable, and left Billie thinking she meant in a different sense. She draws a quick conclusion. “Are you Delilah?” Billie asks in return, but she already knows the answer. Billie stands to full height, sliding out of the woman’s touch, but as uncomfortably close to her as she was to the edge of the roof. She was ready to grab Delilah if she were to fall, bringing her down with her. If she died, so would Delilah. Even in death, she would make Daud proud. 

“Yes, and who might you be?” Delilah’s fingers touch her mask, threatening to expose her face, but she clutches onto it protectively. Some of the Whalers hated the stuffiness of the masks - initially created with the intention to ward off noxious steam from potent whale oil for the workers in factories - but for Billie, it was a comfort. A safety blanket. The last bit of anonymity in the world that she had. It causes Delilah to hesitate. “I know what you are. Assassin. One of Daud’s croons.”

“How do you know Daud?” Billie questions, defensive of her mentor. 

Delilah paces, giving Billie space to stand at ease once again. “Everyone has heard the ghostly stories of the Knife of Dunwall. Anyone who is anyone has feared to find his blade at their throat if their enemy happens to be wealthy enough to gain his attention.” Not personally, Billie determines. That sets her a little at ease. Still, she is left feeling in the dark, intuition telling her there is more than Delilah will tell her. Billie is not used to being less informed than others around her. She always liked to know more, have secrets up her sleeve, a trick card to pull out in a moment of dire need, but here, she was playing Delilah’s game, still not knowing what her deal was. 

“You found me here,” Billie states. Found insinuated she had been looking, and Billie was not an easy target to find - particularly by accident.   
  
“Call it a premonition,” Delilah answers. “I knew Daud’s path would be crossing mine as he knew mine would his,” She relays. Billie is silent, but she follows. The Outsider doesn’t have favorites, never chooses a side, this much she had learned from Daud. Billie’s hand lingers near her tucked blade, ready to draw and jam it into Delilah’s chest if need be. She could end it all right now, bring Daud the head of Delilah, like a cat brings their master a rat. But Daud had been clear. She was not a target. Not yet anyway. She could prove to be a powerful ally, and that was enough for Daud to keep her around, for now. “But you, now you were a surprise,” Delilah confesses. Her black gloved index finger presses between her clenched teeth, as if in thought. “I wonder why you instead of him.”

Billie is uncomfortable with the intensity of Delilah’s stare, almost as if she could see right through heavy red leathers and a whaler’s mask. If so, she wondered what Delilah saw. She almost seemed intrigued. “I beat him to the punch,” Billie answers, a half truth. Daud liked to cover his grounds. He could have very well done the scout mission that lead Billie here himself, but perhaps not without attracting unwanted attention, or derailing him from much more important work. He had the whalers to lead, so Billie could handle the more trivial, the more sensitive quests like these. She took pride it in even, because she was the only person Daud would ever trust with them. 

“I suppose I could lie to you, but it would be a waste of my breath,” Delilah begins. Honesty felt unexpected, but everything does with Delilah. “Daud is a problem for me, and I came looking for a solution.” Billie blinks at the forwardness of Delilah’s intentions. Instinct tells her to defend her mentor. “Does that sound familiar?” Furthermore, she had read her with striking accuracy. Was not the purpose of this mission to find a solution for Daud as well. She scorned the similarity.

“Why are you telling me this?” Billie replied. A warning was much friendlier than Billie had come to accept from the world. It was a challenge, she determined. Or a battle cry. The question earned a laugh, vibrating through Delilah’s closed lips. Her fight or flight instinct kicked in, she felt it creep through her veins, filling with fire and telling her to make a move. Fight or flee - but fleeing was not an option when it came to Delilah. She was important to Daud. Billie would prove herself to him by ending her now. 

She unsheaths her sword, thrusts it low towards Delilah’s abdomen, but before she can break skin, a vine wraps around the blade, pulls it off its course. She struggles against the vine, but it disarms her, tosses the blade off the building. Billie tranverses behind Delilah, reaches for her neck to attempt to choke her out. Delilah jabs her elbow into her gut before she can get a good grip. It’s enough to cause Billie to recoil. Another vine sprouts from the ground, whips violently across Billie’s face. She’s disorientated, can hardly process Delilah grabbing her red leathers, pushing her back towards the edge. Her feet can do nothing but clumsily shuffle, trying to get a stand and having no time to plant themselves on the roof to resist. 

She’s at the edge now, the toes of her feet shuffling at the ridge that marks the end of the roof and the beginning of a three story drop. With one hand Delilah holds onto her by the collar, which Billie finds herself desperately clinging to for support. Her mind races to find an escape, but the only choice is the drop she has no chance of surviving. Her time runs out and Delilah makes the decision for her - releasing Billie’s leathers and the assassin free falls. 

Her heart pounds like a war drum in her chest. She clutches her hand over empty air, attempting a transversal, but the building is moving past her much too quickly - no obvious ledges for her to blink herself towards. She braces for an impact she knows will not be kind - but it doesn’t come. Her fall is abruptly halted, something catching her around her waist and stopping the deadly impact at the sacrifice that it crushes her insides and knocks the wind out of her. Another vine, much thicker to accommodate supporting a person. It rests Billie gently on the ground, like a child might carefully put down their doll. She’s confused, her mind lagging, still coming to terms with her death, the death that hadn’t come and she isn’t sure why. 

The vine has disappeared with little hint that it had sprouted from the ground a moment before. Billie twists her neck around to look from whence she had fallen. A shadowed figure stands on the roof that could only be Delilah. She is stoic, so that she could have been mistaken for a statue if Billie weren’t any the wiser. She expects Delilah to attack, seeing that the fall had not succeeded in killing her. Surely she could see her down there, still standing on two legs. Then she moved, disappearing beyond the edge of the roof and out of sight.

Billie hurries, searches with desperation for where her weapon had landed. She spots the hilt sticking out of a small patch of grass, having driven itself in with the force of the fall. Billie coaxes it out, wipes some of the dirt off on her leathers, and prepares for Delilah - but she doesn’t come. 

The sun begins to ascend in the sky. She can hear voices on the far streets, workers heading to clock in for their shifts at the whaling factory. Soon, she will no longer be alone. Billie counts her luck and takes it as her cue to leave - but she is still left wondering; had Delilah decided to spare her similarly as she decided to kill her in the first place? And if she had, then why?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kind of an intermission chapter, mostly just an exploration of Billie's character

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Came up with a couple of random Whaler names because calling them Whaler One and Whaler Two wasn't working for me

Billie tells Daud what will be the first of many lies. And hours later, she leaves him alone in the makeshift torture chamber with the man who will confess to Daud nothing that Billie did not already know. She listens to his screams as Daud sends volts through his body. Maybe it’s cruel of her to let the man suffer without reason, but from what Billie observed of his employees, the man deserved a right found beating - so she let’s it happen, pretends that when it’s over and Daud relays what he has learned that it’s interesting and new. She asks how Daud wishes to dispose of the body. Together they carry the unconscious corpse to a crate and seal him within. It’s unjustifiably merciful, in her opinion, and a decision made by a man who couldn’t have been Daud, yet spoke with his lips, his face. She was past trying to count the amount of times Daud had chastised assassins who wasted sleep darts, when they should be reserved for jobs that specified bringing someone in alive. Now he was taking extra measures in ensuring his collateral damages did not add up in body counts. Hypocritical, she would have said, if Billie would allow herself to believe so. 

She does not know why she lied for Delilah. The witch had made her intentions clear, and Billie should have been rushing to Daud’s defense, but she does not feel like it. Daud is still precious to her. She was too proud to admit it in her young age, but he is the only thing she has that is family. 

Maybe it’s embarrassment that she had lost the fight. She would have died had that vine not saved her, and she has no other leads than Delilah had decided to spare her. Billie was uncomfortable with such an exchange. If she owed Delilah something, she knew she could count on that witch to collect, and Billie was afraid what the price would be. 

Back in the flooded district, rats scamper at her feet. Billie does not fear the plague, but she ignores the pests nonetheless. If she listens, she can hear them speak and they speak in her voice - Deirdre’s. Sometimes when she was lonely, Deirdre’s memory was all she had to keep her company, but lately she does not want to think about her. 

It’s either her own stormy thoughts or Deirdre’s raspy voice, whispering about fresh blood nearby and a desire to taste it on her tongue. It’s fucked up. Billie clutches the charm Deirde had stolen for her, that she always kept in her leathers, and chucked it across the room. The voices dwindle until she can no longer hear them. Billie runs her hands over her face and then replaces her mask. 

She walks the halls of their hideout. New blood is being trained in the art of transversal. Billie does not bother to learn the names of the latest Whalers, not wanting to waste her time on wannabe assassins who will die within the first or second job they take on. Once they’ve proved themselves, then they earn her respect. 

She hears bubbling laughter in the room ahead. It’s a passive curiosity that causes her to look through askew door, regretting it immediately when she sees far more skin than she wanted to and exposed, erect genitals. Billie scoffs, disgusted at the lack of discretion her fellow Whalers possessed. 

“Erm, sorry Lurk,” Casmir was without his mask, and a full blush covered his face and extended to his ears. His partner was less bashful, throwing a glare from where he lounged over a piece of worn furniture. 

“Whatever,” Billie waved it off. She was thankful for her mask obscuring her face. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. Sex never embarrassed Billie before. It was natural to her and while she did not find lovers among the ranks of the Whalers, nor brought outsiders home, it was well known among the Whalers of her preference for women. Seeing a dick or two was not the reason for her burning prudishness now. “Just have some shame and do it elsewhere next time,” She scolded the pair, before moving to create as much space as she could between her and the scene. 

Her heart was throwing itself against her sternum over and over again. She felt a swell of emotions, but mostly irritation at her Whalers for being caught by her. But who was she to keep them from enjoying themselves? Even to Daud, who she knew had no interest in sexual relations with anyone, he would not berate his Whalers for indulging themselves and she knew it was unfair of her to be feeling this way now. 

Billie found herself back in her room. Her eyes landed on the rat charm that suffered a small knick from the force of her throw. Billie picked it up and from the distant halls, she could hear the rats whispering once more. She turned the charm over in her palms, rubbed it fondly with her thumb. She was jealous, Billie realized. What few lovers she took in the time Daud had been silent to her had quickly been chased away with Billie’s tempestuous moods. She did not want anything solid. She did not believe she could hold a relationship while she was a Whaler and leaving the Whalers was out of the question, but she couldn’t deny - a part of her wanted one. A relationship. Only someone as powerful as herself could do.

She already knows who she wants to see when she touches herself. Long, white fingers, like skeleton bones. Sharp cheekbones framing deep blue eyes. Her initial reaction is to be disgusted by the thought, but it is too enticing to ignore. She hates Delilah, Billie tells herself, but a part of her wants to love her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a labor of love at this point because I love Billie as a character so much. It's been fun imagining what a young Billie would be like. 
> 
> Also, I decided to include a sex scene after all, which will be coming up in one or two chapters, I just gotta figure out exactly how it goes. I got a good idea, but also, then when I think about it in practicality, doing that is just asking for a UTI


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I did decide on a sex scene after all

There isn’t a secret told that Billie could not uncover with enough ambition, so it is not long before Billie catches wind of the name Brigmore Manor. Even before she considers setting foot on bewitched land, Billie already knows what she will find inside. She suspected for awhile that Delilah did not work alone. She had kept quiet observation while she was out with Daud, noticing in peripherals people that looked like trees, who were there one moment and gone as soon as she turned to investigate. Coincidence hardly existed in Dunwall. 

Billie takes a boat, opting for paddles instead of the loud gurgling of an engine. She wades the boat along the Wrenhaven, until lights get fewer and she knows she has left Dunwall. The river lulls into low water, as the river leaked from a carefully kept current onto abandoned once manicured lawns. She feels the tug of flora with each row now, warning her to turn back. 

The moon is bright in the sky. It glistens on the water and in the distance, there is a small hill - no, a building, a long ago abandoned home of the once wealthy Brigmore family. The windows are dark. Whether still empty now, or boarded up to sway any prying eyes like her own, she can not tell from where she was in the marsh. But there is a feeling. It makes the hair of her neck stand on end. She senses power, like standing near an alter of the Outsider, or holding a whalebone. 

The boat hits soggy ground with a reluctant stop and Billie knows she will have to go on by foot. She tethers the boat to a tree with boughs weighed down by dangling moss. Her boots sink into the ground with each careful step. She does not notice the glow of a strange green aura until it is too late. 

What she had originally perceived to be a rock, turned out to be the skull of a long dead hound. Now close enough to trigger the magic, he glows to life, bones assembling back into the shape of a beast. He howls a wretched noise and Billie reaches for her blade, drawing it and holding it at the ready. He does not attack, despite his continued snarls, ordered to standby at the sound of a shrill whistle. Billie realizes she is not the only living thing in the marsh. 

She was there - whether transversing in a moment prior, or having waited in the shadows until this moment to reveal herself - Delilah. She was like one of the trees in the marsh, long limbs engulfed by the water, and Billie had not failed to notice that Delilah was in her most natural form, as naked as the day she was born. 

“I had hoped you would come,” Delilah relays. With the wave of her hand, the gravehound returns to being a disembodied skull. 

“What are you doing?” Billie asks, though there is much else she could have said first. Questions that littered her mind. Reasons that had brought her here. Delilah was a strange woman. Billie should have known it was a fool’s errand to try and understand her. 

“Going for a late night swim,” Delilah answers, as if it had not been obvious. She reaches a hand from the water and holds it towards the sky, as if she could hold the glowing orb that was the moon in the palm of her hand. “The full moon is the best time for it.” Billie was not into rituals. She had no basis to dispute.

“Join me.” Billie can’t help but think the invitation is for more than just the obvious. Delilah traces her fingers along her collarbone, puffing her chest ever so slightly. She can see the pink of her nipples refracted in the water. Delilah had a small, elegant chest. The rest of the shape of her body was concealed by dark waters. 

“You haven’t even seen what I look like,” For some reason it was the only excuse that came to her mind, but her usually quick as a whip brain was having a hard time keeping pace with this odd situation. Billie had few thoughts when it came to her physical appearance, but she had felt an overwhelming need to hide her face. It had brought her bad luck in her youth, when she became known for the wrong things. She did not trust Delilah’s interest now, though she could not deny she wanted it.

“You’ve done your research. You must know that I like powerful people,” A slender finger presses between pale lips. “I never met someone quite like you.” Her eyes remain on her, the moon above giving them an unnatural shine. Billie could not help but think Delilah looked like a hound staring at a rather large chunk of meat.

The jacket is first to go. She takes her time in stripping it from her as if she were calling Delilah’s bluff then and there. Delilah tracks her every move with her eyes. It’s interest, Billie realizes, and not out of caution. The witch sinks beneath the water, so that only her blue eyes and pointed eyebrows are still exposed above it’s surface. Next, she unbuttons her shirt, exposing rippled muscles, ghostly scars and twin breasts. Despite the night being warm for the season, her nipples rise at the touch of the breeze. She wriggles out of her boots, regretting abandoning them when the ground squishes between her toes in their absence. She removes her pants before she unbucklind her sheath, reluctant to put distance between her and her weapon, in case this turned out to be a trap. There is the overwhelming sense that this is a trap, but Billie knows it is not the kind in which Delilah would attack and kill her. If she had wanted to, she would have done so when they sparred on the rooftops. She would have allowed her to fall to her death. What exactly Delilah was trying to do, Billie could not figure out, yet she found herself wandering willingly forward into whatever shape the trap she set took. 

The mask is the very last thing Billie removes. Her own face, the most vulnerable part of her body to show another person. She doubted it would be recognizable to someone like Delilah, but when she notices the woman taking attention to her, Billie thinks again.

“What is it?” Billie asks.   


Delilah’s hand cups her cheek, a stark contrast in their complexions “You’re a lot younger than I thought you would be.” Billie is unable to question it when a moment later Delilah’s lips are brushing against her’s. Billie doesn’t kiss back, but she allows Delilah to guide her into the water, feeling the small waves lap against her thighs, before the water folds in around the shape of her body. 

Delilah touches her waist, holding her close, but even without it, Billie would have obeyed. Her fingertips brush along her side, around and up her sternum. She traces a circle around the swell of Billie’s breast and Billie reflectively gasps. Her skin raises at Delilah’s touch. Her fingers are cold, but Billie can think of a way to warm them up. 

She wraps a leg around Delilah’s waist. She is slender and slight, but is able to support Billie’s muscular form. Her slender fingers slide between their bodies and find Billie’s bush. A fingertip rubs circles around her clitoris. Billie sighs in pleasure, holding onto her a little bit tighter. 

“You’re a tiger, but yet I make you purr like a kitty cat,” Delilah comments. Billie hates the self absorbed way Delilah thinks. She believes she is the sun, but even Billie cannot deny that Delilah has a certain gravitational pull to her. Why had she come here again?

She rubs herself against Delilah’s thigh, but in the water, finds that it does not have the desired friction. “I know somewhere better.” Delilah tells her. She thinks she meant the house, but when Delilah transverses them both elsewhere, she finds the room to be much too small. The only thing inside was a bed made of stone. Billie realizes what this place is - a mausoleum. 

Billie takes charge, pushes Delilah back onto the stone bed. Her hands run along Delilah’s sides. She fancied herself a ringleader, that’s why she liked powerful people, only to subdue and use them. Well this tiger was about to eat her trainer. 

She straddled Delilah with her legs, looking into her eyes as she watched with a thrilled curiosity to see what she would do next. “You want my body, Witch, then I’ll make  _ you _ worship me,” Billie told her, before settling down a Delilah’s face. She felt a laugh vibrate through Delilah’s body, and couldn’t help but think Delilah was enjoying this. 

Billie was rigid in her pose, fire pumping through her blood with what she assumed was hatred for Delilah. But then her tongue was on her. Her laps were dainty and delicate, but traced over Billie’s folds in a way that pleasantly teased her. She sighed, despite herself, and relaxed. Her lips sucked at her clitoris, tongue darting out to tease at it. Billie gasped. She grinded against Delilah’s lips. She felt Delilah’s nails claw at her back.

“Harder,” She instructed. Delilah obeyed, scratching them into her skin until Billie was sure she drew blood. She gasps and can feel herself orgasm for the first time that night. 

The second time, she is on her back and Delilah is leaning over her. She curses the unforgiving nature of the stone bed. She does not know who’s grave they are copulating on top of, but it remains a distant thought in her mind, as Delilah’s lips are wet from her fluid and now it’s her fingers taking attention to her slick entrance. Her free hand scratches along her chest, between her breasts, until her skin is red and angry. This is Delilah’s whip and she is the tiger, about to submit.

Delilah presses in and Billie gasps. They slide with ease with Billie’s arousal and somehow Delilah knows just wear to rub her. She releases a cry this time when she cums. The small room smells heavy of her scent now, almost drowning out the musk of soil. She lays on the stone slab, sprawled out like a sacrifice, as she catches her breath. Delilah remains on the edge, looking down at her.

It takes effort for Billie to recollect her dignity and leave the mausoleum naked in pursuit of finding her clothes in the marsh outside, but when she does, she looks back at Delilah for a moment only. 

“This didn’t mean anything,” Billie speaks, almost as if she needs to convince herself. It was not an act of rebellion against Daud or a pledge of loyalty to Delilah. It was curiosity that lead her to the manor. It was gathering precious intel on the enemy, knowing where she roosted. The sex was unexpected, and while it happened and was enjoyed, it was no contract signed.

“Of course,” Delilah replies, with a knowing smile, as she watched Billie leave. 

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Should I freshen up on KoD by replaying it?  
> Also Me: No


End file.
